Recent years have seen an explosion in the popularity of microwave cooking and of foods packaged in containers especially adapted for such cooking. One of the earliest successes in this area was microwavable popcorn packaged in microwavable packages, and numerous patents have been issued on such packages. See, for example, U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,973,045, 4,038,425, 4,219,573, 4,292,332, 4,450,180, 4,548,826, 4,461,031, 4,503,559, 4,553,010, 4,678,882, 4,571,337, and 4,584,202.
Until recently, there had been only limited success in cooking meat products by microwave, in part because of the difficulties in browning or crisping a food product in a microwave oven. In some instances, microwave susceptor materials have been incorporated into cooking packages or containers for the foods to enhance browning or crisping. New product formulations for foods may also include special spice or bread coatings or sauces which can be combined with meat products to provide an appetizing product when the meat product is cooked by microwave even in the absence of browning or crisping. The packaged products might include, for example, a suitable microwave cooking package and a sauce or spice mixture to which the consumer adds a meat product. The sauce or spice mixture and the meat product are combined in the microwave cooking package, and the entire package is placed in the microwave oven.
With the development of such new combination products has come a need for specially adapted packaging products. Ideally, such packages should be easily manufactured, should not add substantial cost to the overall product. In those instances in which an edible component (such as a spice or sauce mixture) is sold with the bag, the bags should ideally be suitable not only for packaging the edible component under shelf-stable conditions, but also for containing the entire edible component during microwave cooking. The package should also preferably provide conveniences such as a heat-resistant handle for easy handling and a self-embodied closing means. Finally, the package should be adaptable to a wide variety of microwavable foods, not only the combination products described above but also popular microwavable foods such as popcorn.